The Bayonet Box
by sonnetcxvi
Summary: Delphine's thoughts as she drives to DYAD after saying goodbye to Cosima outside Bubbles. Canon episode 3X10. A bayonet box is a magic trick in which a magician drives swords or bayonets through a box that holds the assistant. This story was originally archived at Archive of Our Own.


**The Pledge**

It is strange, she thinks, not to know the end. She has always focused on outcomes and results. It's why science comforts her. There is always a road to an answer. There is always, eventually, a conclusion, even if she does not reach it herself. But now? Now she is nearing a conclusion she won't remember. For her, the end won't exist. None of this will. It is all being lost as it is completed. Cosima will remember bits. Shay will remember bits. But once Delphine doesn't remember it, no one will know exactly what it was or how it came to be or how she felt as she embraced it. It will be gone for good, and the shadow of it will be gone as well.

She is satisfied with their goodbye despite the fact that her last moment with Cosima had been a lie as had been the first. It has a melancholy symmetry and she wishes that deception hadn't been necessary, but very few of her wishes come to anything these days so she supposes she must let it go. At least the final lie had been for love, she thinks, which makes it different from the first. At least the final lie had been to protect Cosima instead of to trap her. _I love you_ she had thought as she took Cosima's face in her hands outside of Bubbles. _Forgive me for deceiving you in this, but it's best that you don't know._

Standing on the sidewalk, the lights of the storefront pushing back the winter darkness, she had felt for a moment their old rhythm, both of them in that last moment feeling the same thing. It had made it easier for her to continue. She had worried as she waited outside that Cosima would misread her intentions; she had often misunderstood. But Delphine was not misunderstood this time. She knew that Cosima's last memory of her would be that she loved her. She had seen it in Delphine's tears; she had felt it in their kiss.

Delphine is comforted, knowing that Cosima has accepted her final gift: a good parting. And she is relieved that the most important thing has been accomplished. She knows that their goodbye will help Cosima later, when she is stabbed by grief. It will help her to know that Delphine was good with where they ended and that her apology had healed Delphine's hurt, a hurt that Cosima would have regretted forever. Maybe, Delphine hopes, someday far in the future it will even become a good memory, this goodbye to Delphine on the snowy street, this pressing of their lips, this benediction at the end of their passion play.

Her thoughts stay with Cosima, of course, even as her body moves away. It is a familiar paradox. When she was hired by DYAD, she wouldn't have believed that she could fall in love with a woman or that she was capable of the high emotions that have characterized their affair. But her love for Cosima had unfurled as if conjured. It had spilled out of her unexpectedly like a magician's scarf, silky and knotted and endless; she hadn't known it was hidden in her sleeve. Cosima had summoned it, bent over her in the bed, whispering into her ear the dark secret words that had pulled it from her. Cosima had awakened it and now she trusts that it will hold fast even when she lets go.

Delphine is surprised that she can think about any of this because she is starting to be afraid. It has been such an unexpected and heartbreaking journey. She has changed so much. And now she doesn't have long to make peace with it all and to remember the things that matter most to her. The night is almost over and she must still copy the sisters' files for them and destroy the originals. It is the only way to offer them some security for the time she won't be in a position to protect them.

 **The Turn**

She stops at the corner on a dark street. One thing, she thinks. Find one thing to remember and savor as the distance to DYAD shortens. She chooses a night of making love. Cosima had come to her in her apartment while she was asleep, saying that she was lonely and unhappy. She had slipped into bed wearing only her panties, and Delphine had turned to her sleepily, offering her breast as a pillow. She had kissed the top of her head and gathered her in, warming her chilled flesh with her body and the cocoon of bedding.

"What's wrong," she murmured as Cosima lay staring into the dark.

"I don't know. Hormones, I think."

"Are you menstruating?" asked Delphine. Cosima's compromised uterus had meant almost no menses. For her to be menstruating now extended a tentacle of concern into Delphine's awakening brain.

"Yeah. I started this morning."

"Normal?"

"Jesus, Delphine. Can you just not?"

They had lain in silence for a while before Cosima uttered, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. It's pretty heavy."

Delphine had kissed her again and tightened her arms to reassure her. They had been silent for a while.

"I need to pee. I'll be right back. Do you want water or something?" asked Delphine, rising. Cosima shook her head.

She had padded to the bathroom and flipped on the light. She was very casual about nudity and privacy and she wonders now if she should have been more sensitive to what she thinks of as Cosima's American sensibilities. But she is glad that on that night she had behaved as usual, leaving the door open and the light on, not dousing it when she had returned to bed because she wanted to see Cosima.

While she was gone, Cosima had flipped onto her back and was lying with her arms above her head, staring up. She hadn't adjusted the blankets and was exposed above the waist, her breasts pulled up and slightly flattened by this attitude. Delphine had paused to look down at her in the angled light from the bathroom. _She is such a wonderful, beautiful creature_ , she had thought for the thousandth time. _There is no word for how I am changed by her._ She had shucked off her pajama top before getting into bed and facing Cosima, and had placed her hand on a cool breast, letting her still fingers warm the nipple. Cosima had turned her face to her.

"I love you, Delphine."

"I love you too, sweetheart. Always." And then, "Is there anything that will make you feel better?"

Cosima had lowered her arms and turned into her, wedging her face between Delphine's cheek and the pillow. Delphine had let her burrow, covering her and pulling her tight, content to hold and comfort some sleepiness back into her. At the first touch of Cosima's coolness, her skin had tightened as Cosima's had relaxed. The transfer of temperature had pulled them across an invisible membrane into each other. They lay like this for some time, their bodies settling into a tactile equilibrium where they felt less separate, less alone.

"Do you think that we'll ever be safe?" Cosima had finally asked.

"I don't know," she'd answered truthfully.

"It's so hard to live like this. I'm so tired of all this shit."

"I know you are," said Delphine. After a pause she'd continued. "I know it won't fix anything, but I want you to know that I am proud of you. You've been so brave. I am surprised all the time by how brave you are."

Cosima sighed. "I don't feel brave. Mostly I'm just pissed off and afraid."

"But that's why you're brave, Cosima. You're afraid and you face it every day. "

Cosima had hugged her then, pulling with her arm and pressing up with her cheek. After, she had drawn back to look into Delphine's eyes, her face softening into a grin. "Do you want to feel where my Supergirl cape attaches? It's massively high tech and sexy. It feels just like skin."

Delphine had smiled and reached to touch the little valley beneath her collarbone that she loved to kiss. "Here?" she'd asked. "This is a very sexy spot."

Cosima had taken her hand and moved it to her breast. "No, here. Lower. Can you feel the clasp?"

There was in that little seduction the essence of her lover. Part wit, part tenderness, clever word made flesh in the nipple tightening under Delphine's hand. She had chuckled and then kissed her, rubbing with her thumb to undo the latch and with it, Cosima.

It was like saying a magic word. Cosima pressed in and deepened the kiss, cocking her elbow to capture Delphine with her forearm and throwing her leg over Delphine's thighs. This offering of Cosima's opened body excited her as it always did. She perceived in it a gift and an appeal, a surrender and a sort of claiming. Her emotions surged up into her throat and she felt the deep tickle of her genitals engorging, instant and thrilling. This rush of feeling felt like cells dividing, stimulating the two extremes of her torso before slamming her back together into an electrified version of herself. She had never experienced this with a lover before, never this immediate welling-up and quivering at the mouth of passion. When Cosima drew this from her she usually resisted the urge to thrust into her immediately, but on this particular night she hadn't, pushing quickly between their bodies and grasping her, pulling up firmly with her whole hand, pressing against as much of her as she could.

Cosima had gasped and reached down to push ineffectually at her underwear. Delphine rolled her off, sitting to yank off both Cosima's underwear and her own before throwing herself back down into a graceless kiss. Immediately, Cosima spread her legs and raised a knee and Delphine reached down, pressing her middle finger between Cosima's lips, looking for the wet, the slick that meant she could enter her. But she was dry. Of course, her period. There was the little string.

Delphine withdrew her hand and put her fingers into her mouth to wet them, drawing saliva onto her tongue and trailing a tendril of spit when she pulled them out. She reached between Cosima's legs again in seconds.

Lubricating Cosima with saliva was different from using her secretions; it was less slippery and she needed to return again and again to her mouth to wet her fingers. As her own arousal grew, she felt Cosima downshift slightly each time she withdraw her hand and she began to cast about for a better way to stimulate her. She wanted to use her mouth but she knew that Cosima would forbid this because she was menstruating; and there was no lube. She finally reached between her own legs, pushing her fingers inside herself several times to get them wet. When she touched Cosima this time Cosima had sucked in a big breath, clearly excited by Delphine's almost masturbation and by being stroked with the evidence of Delphine's obvious concupiscense. But after a few moments of rubbing, even this lubrication started to disappear and Cosima began to deflate. Delphine was beginning to feel slightly frantic, needing to advance, needing to pull Cosima into herself, to push herself into Cosima.

Finally, she stilled, afraid that if she continued any longer with dry fingers she would hurt her. She moved her hand slightly lower and found the string. "I want to take this out," she said.

"No," said Cosima. "Not necessary. Let me touch you instead."

Delphine slid over to lie on top of Cosima, taking her wrists and pressing them beside her head as she kissed her. She had hovered there for a few moments, her love exploding like snap fire and then compressing into the pinpoint of her desire.

"I want to be inside you, baby. To touch you properly. Now."

Cosima looked into her eyes, her voice breathless, the opposite of her words. "We'll destroy your bed. It'll make a huge mess."

"I don't care," she had growled. "Let me."

"Go get a towel, then."

"Non. I don't want to wait."

So, slightly hesitant about the mess, Cosima acquiesced.

Delphine started again, placing her fingertip at Cosima's opening and gently pushing. She was still dry, everything having been absorbed. One last time Delphine put her fingers into her mouth, watching Cosima watch her as she slid them in and out a couple of times, closing her eyes slowly and then opening them to Cosima's parted lips and whispered _oh_. This time when she reached down she was able to enter her and before long she began to feel her moisten, whether from arousal or blood she wasn't sure. As Delphine moved inside her Cosima began to rotate her hips, clearly trying to help her find the sweet spot. Little lapping sounds rose up as Delphine thrust into her, the blood that was finally seeping down onto her hand sucking with a little snick as her fingers moved in and out. Cosima continued to shift but despite her obvious desire for gratification, she seemed to be chasing her pleasure futilely; Delphine could feel her beginning to wilt.

Delphine withdrew her hand and moved upward, pressing her knee between Cosima's legs and bending to kiss her breasts and her throat, biting lightly as Cosima pushed against her and started again to twist, seeking a pleasure point. She could feel Cosima's blood on her leg and to her surprise, it excited her. They had never made love this way before and there was no odor, the scent of sexual arousal that they were hardwired to respond to overshadowed by a coppery tang. This urge to press forward with no regard to the bed felt forbidden and intimate and she wanted Cosima to feel its thrill because it was unlikely that they would do it again. But after a few minutes, despite her efforts, she had to acknowledge that she was more aroused by this lovemaking than Cosima was and she wasn't surprised when Cosima finally lay still and said, "I can't get there." She had kissed her, pulling her thigh back and laying her hand gently on her belly, which was still heaving slightly.

"Do you want to?" she had asked.

"Yes, I just can't."

Delphine withdrew and rose from the bed. She turned back and said to Cosima "come," snatching up the duvet and dropping it onto the floor, across from the mirrored closet door. She sat on it, legs spread, her feet inches from their reflected twins, and motioned for Cosima to sit between her legs. There was a bright rhombus of light at the foot of the bathroom door and they could see each other in the mirror, their faces half in shadow. She reached up and placed a hand between Cosima's breasts and another around her waist, pulling her tight against her as she leaned against the bed. She held her there, tucked-up and still, before moving her hand to cup her breast and bending to kiss the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck. She willed her love into Cosima through her touch, caressing her as though she could break through the barrier that kept their molecules apart, as though she could, through some loving sleight of hand, leap from her own body into that of her lover. Then she had leaned forward and spread Cosima's bloodstained thighs, pulling them back until she opened like a dark flower. Her glistening sex beckoned like a slippery eye.

"You are mine," she whispered into Cosima's ear, moving her hand down between her legs. _"Nous allons baiser._ We're going to fuck. We're going to do this together so that you can watch. Do you want to do this?" She pressed her cheek to Cosima's for a moment to feel her nod, and then turned back to the mirror. She began to trace the edges of Cosima with her fingertips, touching lightly, seeing in the mirror what she felt in her fingertips, feeling Cosima's energy pull up at seeing her parted sex and Delphine's touching of it.

"This is my favorite part of your body, the most beautiful. You are perfect, like an illustration," she murmured, her voice low and breathy.

"I want to kiss every part of you here. _Tes levres. Ton vagin,_ " she said, stroking her finger over the slick edge and then between the lips as far as she could reach.

"When we are in the elevator at work I fantasize about touching you. I want to pull your leg over my hip and enter you, pushed against the metal wall. I never care if anyone watches. I don't care if they see. I want them to see how much I love you."

Cosima had groaned and shifted between Delphine's legs. They could see a blood stain on the duvet now.

"You are so beautiful, Cosima. I can't think of enough ways to touch you. I can't think of any part of my body that doesn't want to be inside you. I can't think of anything I wouldn't do to make you feel my desire for you."

She had moved her fingers up, watching Cosima's face as she began to rub in little circles. Cosima's energy had plummeted into her belly and she released a long groan, as though she were trying to enfold this moment and press it into the well of her groin; her facial muscles had melted into the hooded eyes and relaxed mouth that expressed arousal. And then she had begun to move. She had rolled her hips lightly forward against Delphine's fingers; she had clutched Delphine's bloody thighs; she had tipped her head back against Delphine's shoulder, looking down the plane of her face at her gasping reflection. It became difficult to touch Cosima properly as her movements became more agitated, her bicep too extended and fatigued to sustain the stimulation Cosima would need to climax. Eventually she'd taken Cosima's hand and placed it between her legs, stroking her with her own fingers for a moment before removing her hands to Cosima's breasts.

It was a startling image, her bloody hands on Cosima's beautiful breasts. They stood out, dark and wet on the pale skin, her veins standing in relief as though they wanted to burst through and absorb the blood that they felt belonged to them by design and by right. As she caressed Cosima's breasts, they groaned together at the sight before them. Cosima began to move against herself as Delphine continued her caressing, both of them circling and pushing, advancing and retreating, evoking Cosima's orgasm as they watched their lovemaking in the mirror, pressed together against the side of the bed.

"I want you to remember how my hands look on you," Delphine had said. "When you are lonely or afraid, remember how you feel right now and what you see in this mirror. This is how we look together."

Cosima had looked up into her eyes then, and Delphine knew she was ready to finish. She groaned as she began to transform within Delphine's embrace; she was a spirit; a sun; a great, crashing burst of electricity. When she cried out, it had been a sobbing _I love you, I love you_ , words she had never spoken during orgasm before.

Delphine clings to this memory. She had pulled back the _foulard_ , she thinks, to expose mysteries that she hadn't known were underneath: she'd seen Cosima transfigured by their hands; she'd seen her own truest self expressed in someone else's touch; she'd seen passion rebirthed in gore. Cosima undone and weeping in her arms at the foot of the mirror was the most profound erotic moment of her life. And when the moment had passed and Cosima had pushed her down to make love to her, she'd seen her bloody goddess rise above her, magnificent, like a Valkyrie.

 **The Prestige**

She turns into the garage and begins the climb to her parking level. In only a moment she will need to focus on the task at hand. There's just this one last thing to remember as she gets to the fifth floor. This most important thing.

 _Love isn't at all what she thought it was when she'd first reached for Cosima. It's not doves rising from a false-bottomed hat. It's not linked rings or a spotlight on a darkened stage. It is not a lover tapping your heart to produce a bouquet or to summon a gasp. These are only love's reflections._

 _Love is a bayonet box._

 _You climb in alone. You fold yourself to fit. And no matter what, you don't pull the lever to escape. You allow yourself to be pierced. Because love, the final and most wonderful trick of all, has a dark and terrible secret at its core and it is this: the box, with its polished wood and its infinity mirrors, its secret panels and its trap doors, is not, finally, the magic._

 _The swords are the magic._

The swords are her offering. The swords are her proof. In their horror and their beauty, the swords are what will pin her scarlet oblation, forever, to Cosima's heart.

When she steps out of the car there are footsteps. _Be brave_ , she thinks as she turns.

The final sword slides home, quick as a bullet.


End file.
